Whether, for example, Mr.Gladstone ought to have proclaimed himself a Home Ruler before the elections of 1885, whether Lord Salisbury's reference, or alleged reference, to twenty years of coercion was or was not judicious, and did or did not receive a fair interpretation from his opponents; whether Lord Carnarvon misled Mr.Parnell, or whether the Irish leader was a dupe to his own astuteness; whether Mr.Chamberlain ought to have joined the late Ministry, or, having gone into the Cabinet, ought never to have left it; what have been the motives consciously or unconsciously affecting Mr.Gladstone's course of action--these and a hundred other enquiries of the like sort, which engage the attention and distract the judgment of the public, possess, in the eyes of any serious thinker occupied in estimating the strength of the arguments for and against Home Rule, no material importance whatever.

His concern is the merit or demerit of a legislative enactment.

He is not concerned at all with the conduct or the character of legislators.

Mr.Gladstone's motives may be the highest which can be ascribed to the Premier by the voice of admiring friendship, or the basest which can be imputed to him by the unfairness of political rancour.

In any case they are irrelevant to the matter in hand.